Once a Man, Twice a Child
by ManofManyHats
Summary: A disease eats at Zuko's mind and slowly, but surely, picks apart the man Izumi calls her father.


_AN: Takes place a few years after LOK._ _Alzheimer's a piece of shit. Love those close to you while you still can, everyone._

* * *

It starts so small that no one notices.

It starts with a wrong move in Pai Sho, her father not realizing the illegitimate play he just made. _You can't place the lotus tile like that,_ she'd say, the thought _you've played this game a thousand times before, you know that,_ cycling through her head. A few seconds pass, he gives an embarrassed laugh and the worry dissipates.

It starts with forgetting the tea he's brewed for over 60 years. A little hint and it jogs his mind.

It starts with forgetting how to handle the radio, how to send a letter. It starts with a few mixed up words – he'd once called a watch a 'hand clock' and they'd all laughed – a few seconds needed before he remembers a name.

It ends with a shy laugh. _I'm old, Izumi,_ he'd say, _I just forget sometimes._

It started so small, and she has no idea when it came to this.

 _It's not his fault. It's not your fault._ The healer says. _It's a disease and there's no one to blame._

She can barely glance at him because at that moment he's asleep and he looks so weak, so tired and all she can think is that he's sick and she never even realized. She asks if it could be cured. The healer looks grim.

 _His brain has deteriorated. You can't heal what no longer exists._ You're too late, is all she hears. _Water healing can't stop it, but perhaps regular medicines will slow it down. You will have every treatment at your disposal, Firelord._

Firelord. As if she were anything other than a terrible daughter at this moment.

 _We will do everything we can. Do not worry._

But of course she worries. She'd been too afraid to ask how much time he had left. Soon enough, Izumi learns that she should have been more afraid of how much deeper he would fall.

* * *

When he wakes up in the morning and finds her there, bringing him breakfast and folding away the sheets, her father senses something instantly.

"Something's wrong, isn't it, Izumi?" His eyes twinkle patiently over his teacup.

Despite herself, Izumi can't help but smile. "How can you tell?

"It's written all over your face. And as much as I know you love me, turtleduck, there are few things you would put above your work."

"Just like you." She mumbles under her breath.

"Just like me."

He pats down a spot on his bedside. He takes her hand, and Izumi spills the news as openly and steadily as she can, just as she had countless times with countless other issues over the decades. And just as he always did, her father holds her hand, waits quietly and brings every ounce of love and calm he possesses to the surface of his golden eyes.

She still can't keep her voice from shaking. "I'm sorry, father. I should've seen sooner-"

He brings her into his arms. His strength has always been a constant in her life, and Izumi readily falls into it once more. In his embrace, she feels barely a child again.

"Shh, Izumi, don't you dare pin this on yourself. Firelords control a lot of things, but not this. I could never blame you for this."

Tears fog at her glasses. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so…" Weak. Powerless. Fragile. Her father is the one sick, yet here she is, falling into blubbering pieces in his arms. "What are we going to _do_?"

"I don't know, sweetheart." His voice is barely above a whisper. "But no matter what happens Izumi, even if I forget my own name, I will always love you. That will never stop being true."

* * *

While no one knows, she will let everyone live in their ignorance. She doesn't consider it cruel; to let them know would bring nothing but grief and guilt.

When her son comes to visit, she lets him believe that his grandfather's absentmindedness is just a result of age. If he blanks out in front of the officials, she blames it on fatigue and ushers him away. Her father announces his gradual withdrawal from world politics, which is accepted wholly but regrettably, and fills his days walking the palace halls, occasionally dabbling in internal affairs and hosting any visitors they receive.

It continues on like this long enough she almost convinces herself that all is fine. At least, until one quiet night when her doors are thrown open.

When the head of the guard stumbles into her office and reports the emeritus Firelord _missing_ , he's likely expecting her to drop everything and declare a lockdown of the city. She almost does, it sounds dismayingly close to a kidnapping, but she holds back.

"Should I call for a search party, your highness?"

 _He might try to wander. He may get lost._ She remembers the healer's words.

"No…no, not yet. Don't rile the people yet. Get a small group, in plain clothes. Go around the city. I will join you."

The man is a beat slow in giving his salute and his eyebrows knit themselves as she gives the order. "Speak freely, captain."

"No disrespect, Firelord," he begins reluctantly, "but your father is not one to cause such worry. If he hasn't returned by this time at night, maybe it's something more serious."

Her pulse drums a little louder because it is true; her father knew better than to worry others. It was one of the many lessons he had taught her.

"I understand your worries but they are unneeded. Begin the search."

She joins them in the streets, trying in vain to keep her nerves steady. Her father wasn't in any danger, she tries to reason. He has few enemies left, most of which have enough dignity to leave an old man be, and the citizens themselves are quite fond of him. She remembers a time years ago, long before her hair had grayed and the crown hung heavy, when the two walked these streets near every morning. It was a gentler time, where strangers inched forward with gifts and revering words, children would dart around them like happy, nervous fireflies, and Izumi still mimicked her father's every step.

No, he wasn't in any danger. He was only lost. Disoriented. Unstable. Maybe that's worse, but she'll soon see.

It's not long until a guard taps her shoulder and leads her to a quaint firelit plaza, where two silhouettes sit at the edge of a dried up fountain.

"Izumi." Her father's voice breaks through the silence. It calms her, but the hint of a chuckle it held, completely deaf to her distress, makes her guarded. "I didn't expect you out of the palace."

At his side, the second silhouette rises, and offers a bow.

"Firelord." The young woman's eyes are creased with worry. "I've been keeping Lord Zuko company. I'm sorry, I didn't know you were looking for him."

"No apologies needed. Thank you for looking after him."

"It's the least I can do." She turns to her with a bow. "Goodnight, Firelord. Lord Zuko."

When her steps retreat into the dark, Izumi wilts down onto the fountain edge. She hadn't realized how fast her worry had drained her. Perhaps it was her age, or more likely it was the long dreaded assurance that her father was indeed getting worse, but Izumi feels unraveled in a way she hasn't felt in decades.

"Father… where have you been?"

The firelight deepens the creases that mar his face and his voice sounds brittle in her ears. "Well, I went out on a morning walk. It was nice, just a little loud and… a bit disorientating, if I'm honest. I got lost for a little bit, so I decided to sit down and chat for a few minutes."

Her father's hands feel cold and frail in her grip. "Father, it's been hours."

"Has it?" He stares out at the darkness, his eyes growing brighter as he realized how late it really was. "Oh, Izumi, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be out so late. It all just got away from me."

Fear brims at his face. The realization that as scared as she may feel, her father must be feeling a thousand times worse, shakes her so fiercely that when he tries to slip his hand from her grasp, Izumi pulls her father into an embrace.

When he pulls away, her father's eyes are cloudy. "I'll be more careful next time. I'll wear one of those… those wrist… those time…"

She manages a dry smile. "A watch?"

"Yes, that." He smiles back, a smile she's seen a thousand times before. When she was a child, they used to tell her that her father rarely smiled, but she always had a hard time believing that.

She offers him her hand and they walk back to the palace, father and daughter, enjoying each other's precious company under a starlit night.

* * *

He gets the watch, and soon after loses it. There's a few days of him drifting around in vain, trying to retrace his steps, before he picks from thin air the conclusion that someone must have stolen it. Suspicious glares and biting words are doled out like candy. The servants and nobles on the other end are bewildered, and give him polite but worried smiles.

The affair is so childish and her father's actions so absurd that Izumi can't help but wonder if he's being serious.

 _He can't help it._ She thinks bitterly, but that does nothing to assuage the frustration.

And from there, it's a downhill slide and an uphill battle.

His temper rises to a level she hasn't seen since before he had a single gray hair on his head, back in the days when peace was young and assassins still lurked in the shadows. He forgets faces, names, directions, time; like his mind were a fisherman's net that could only get more and more hopelessly tangled.

She tries to calm him, she sits him down and talks for hours to keep him busy. Stories of when she was a child, of the adventures he'd went on, of mother, of past moments that still made her smile.

She learns not to bring up memories like that with him. When he forgets, it feels like her heart is burning.

It's on one of the worse nights that she finally breaks, the night when he couldn't place her late mother's name, and decides to ready a written announcement of her father's health.

He hobbles to her side when she tells him and stammers. "No. I-I'm already losing myself. There's no need for anyone else to know."

When Izumi was a child, they also used to tell her that her father always tried to keep his troubles to himself. That was less difficult to believe.

Locked away in the second drawer of her hardwood desk, the half page statement sits. She still resolves that her father would not be giving an address at the anniversary of the Hundred Year war, a duty he'd fulfilled every year since even before she'd been born.

The day of the anniversary comes, and she does not regret that decision. She regrets not following through on the first.

They host dignitaries and ambassadors and lawmakers at the palace for a night of pleasantries after the morning's ceremony. As one of the last surviving heroes of the Hundred Year War, there was an expectation for her father to appear. Izumi stayed close by his side through the night, and dealt with any mishaps that came, but her father seemed stable for the most part. He spoke eloquently, if maybe strangely intense, but reaffirmed once again the commitment of the Fire Nation to a world of peace.

They almost end the night on a good note.

She stands by him as he shakes the Water Tribe woman's hand with a quizzical squint of his eye.

"You're _Avatar_ Korra, you say?"

"Yes, we've met before, sir." The questioning tone hadn't slipped past either of the women.

"I don't remember." Alarms start blaring in Izumi's head. "What happened to Aang?"

The Avatar shoots Izumi a look, a bit peeved but mostly just confused. Izumi's grown tired of parading her father through the halls tonight, and snaps a warning.

"Father. Show some respect, please."

His face grows steely. "No. She's pretending to be the Avatar, Izumi."

"Father-"

"You can't be the Avatar. Aang is. I'm not stupid!"

Izumi runs out of patience. "Aang died years ago, father. Stop it."

"He's not! He's not… he's…he's..." His anger breaks as the memory clicks, and the energy seems to drain from him in an instant. "Oh…he is. Aang's gone. Of course he is…"

He turns to the Avatar, but Izumi knows he's not truly in this moment. "I'm sorry, Korra. I just… tend to forget sometimes." He turns to her with something akin to fear in his eyes. "I-I'm sorry, Izumi. Excuse me."

All she can do is sigh through her nose as her father wanders away, like a lost dog with its tail between its legs. "I'm sorry about that, Avatar Korra."

The Avatar's eyes follow him as he disappears out the balcony. "Is… is Lord Zuko alright?"

She closes her eyes, still trying to calm her frustration. "He's keeps getting worse and worse…"

"He's sick?"

Izumi bites her tongue. All this trouble to keep the news from breaking, and here she was just minutes from the end of the night letting it slip.

"It'd be best if this never left the palace." Izumi says quietly. "It'll make the people worry. At worst, our critics would see us as weak."

Korra knits her brows in challenge. "I'll be the first to say that your father's not weak. And don't you dare think that."

The Firelord is thankful for the condolence, and smiles, but Izumi was tired, and the words can only do as much as a match in a snowstorm. "Seeing my father has reminded me of how far even the strongest people can fall. And if this could happen to my father… well, there's little stopping me."

"Disease doesn't define anyone." Korra argues. "It can eat at the body or the brain or whatever, but it doesn't take away from who you are or anything you've done. Take that from me."

Korra's words are filled with a fire that Izumi knows could argue for hours, but she has no need for that. The Avatar's advice was always one to follow. "Thank you, Korra."

Sad light fills the Avatar's eyes. Izumi wonders what Aang would think if he could see her father like this. "You should go see him."

Izumi nods, bows a farewell to the younger woman and follows her father out to the balcony.

His hands are white around the railing, hair frayed, elbows and shoulders tucked close to his chest. Slowly, guilt still trailing her steps, Izumi makes her way to his side. She has never seen her father so exhausted, so bent with fear; not when riots were hammering down the palace doors, not when he had an assassin's knife at his throat.

He looks like a child, and there is something bone-chillingly terrifying about seeing your own father like that.

His voice comes quiet and cracked, caught somewhere long in the past. "I want mother."

Her grandmother Ursa had died decades ago, but seeing her father's haunted eyes, trying desperately to find solace in a world he no longer understood, Izumi couldn't bring herself to tell him.

"Your mother?" She asks. "Tell me about her."

* * *

The next morning, Izumi wakes up before dawn and wanders the palace garden. She's alone, not a single soul awake. It has a strange eerie feel to it, as if she were intruding on something she shouldn't be, listening in on a door she knows she shouldn't be behind.

She remembers a memory from years long, long ago...

"You're up early, turtleduck." She runs into her father's open arms, where he twirls her around and gives her a kiss on the forehead. "Did you come to keep me company?"

"Why are you always awake so early?" She giggles into his shoulder.

He laughs, a hearty, contagious thing that made the air around him seem to glow.

"Agni has to wake up early every day. Someone should be here to say good morning." He points to the horizon, where a sliver of red was pushing itself into view, like a little crimson bug she'd seen the other day, trying to break through the pond's surface. "There he is. Good morning, Agni."

… Izumi stands alone on the grass, the sun breaking through the horizon, casting the world in gold.

"Good morning, Agni." She whispers, the words tasting like ash.

* * *

"A dragon! Izumi! Izumi, are you seeing this?"

Druk curls around the old man, who kept whipping his head from her to the dragon like an excited child.

"Izumi!"

"Yes, I see him. That's Druk. He's your dragon."

"Mine?" His eyes are wide with disbelief, before drawing up in wonder. He pets the dragon hesitatingly. "When did you get so big…?"

Druk purrs, a sort of soft growl that shakes the ground around them, and lays his head by her father's feet. Izumi's not sure if he knows something is wrong, though she wouldn't put it past the dragon, but it feels like the entire palace has grown to suspect.

It has been quieter the last few weeks, but the silence is not like someone with a lack of things to say, but like someone biting their tongue. Her father's temper has calmed somewhat, giving way to more of a constant sulking. He mumbles more, talks to people less. It feels almost manageable in the daytime, but his mood tends to swing as the sunlight fades.

A pining whine escapes the dragon's throat when her father begins to walk away. There's a purpose in his step, like he thought he was on his way to an important meeting or late to an appointment. She might worry about him crashing uninvited into a council session, but she also knows that he'll only make it half way to wherever he was going before getting lost in the palace halls. They'd changed countless times over the decades, and she's not sure which blueprint her father is using.

Izumi sighs, almost relieved when he leaves, and feels immediately guilty afterwards. Being honest with herself, she knows she's been avoiding him. She's been scheduling more meetings and burying herself in her work not because there was more than usual on her plate, but because she did not know what to do with the time she had left.

Seeing her father pained her. It was like watching an old, uprooted tree titled at its side, knowing fully well that one day it would fall, but not quite knowing when. Every time she saw him, Izumi unwillingly held her breath. It's the calm before the storm, the shudder before the fall, and Izumi cannot bear to watch. But there is no stopping it. She'd known that from the very first time the healer had looked at her with those grim eyes.

She's sitting in the Great Hall where the portraits of past Firelords hang all in a row. She's reading a scroll and sipping tea when she spots her father walk in from the corner of her eye.

Hair a little disheveled and robes slightly disarrayed, he stands in front of the portraits with an unreadable look in his eyes and stares. She wonders if he remembers the names of their ancestors on the wall; if he even recognizes himself.

A servant walks quietly over to her. "Sorry to bother you, but the council has assembled, Firelord Izumi."

The distraction is appreciated. "Tell them I'll be there soon."

Izumi stands, dusts off her robes and begins to walk away when her father's voice calls from behind her. She freezes.

"Izumi…" He muses, voice cordial and blank and frigid like ice. There is something wrong with the way he says her name, like hearing a voice in a recording, and it makes the air tense as if someone had scratched their nails on a chalkboard. Glancing back at her father, his eyes are locked on her portrait. There is not a shred of recognition in his eyes.

He turns to her with the same blank stare. "...That's a nice name."

* * *

She remembers her mother's words, words that at one time she had seen as nothing but cruel and cynical. She'd run to her mother sometime after grandfather Iroh's funeral, the concept of mortality still bewildering in her mind. All she knew was that grandfather was gone and he wouldn't be coming back.

 _You won't leave, will you?_ She'd asked. Her father had already answered with a kiss on her forehead and a whispered, _of course not, sweetheart._ Her mother's words had her clutching at her robes, crying at her to never say things like that ever again.

 _I hope to die long before I am nothing but a burden to you, Izumi._

Between them, she doesn't know which of her parents have pained her more. All she knows is that she prays she will never cause anyone else this misery.

* * *

Her father is bedridden soon after. The family holes themselves in their house on Ember Island in an attempt to make the days pass as peacefully as they could.

The news breaks all across the world. The backlash hits. Eulogies are readied. Izumi can't stand the headlines.

Papers are collecting on the sitting room table for her to read and answer, but that, and all else outside that Ember Island house, might as well not exist. All that matters is the steady stream of nurses and visitors, and her father lying in the other room.

How had it come to this? She wonders. It had started so small… A wrong move in Pai Sho. Then getting lost in the city one day. Then forgetting a name. And now, now her father is lying in bed with no strength to do anything other than take rattling breaths. Not even speak.

Her father was fading, fading faster than a candle in the wind. It is both a mercy and a curse, but it doesn't feel like her father is dying in the other room. No, it feels like he had faded a long time ago and it was someone else lying with batted breath in that bed.

When she enters, she sees his face pale and sunken, white hair plastered on his temple, and thinks how could this possibly have been the same person. Her father, with his ink black hair and golden eyes, who rode into battle on dragon back and made the enemy quiver, who stood like a statue unflinching before riots calling for blood, who carried her on his shoulders on the Ember island beach till the sun sank beneath the waves.

When he meets her eyes, she finds that she cannot hold them. She focuses on Iroh, who is a much less painful subject. Her son sits at his bedside, a scrapbook on his lap, a history text on the bedstand, recounting to his grandfather the stories he had once told to him when they were both younger. The years at sea chasing the Avatar. The day of his coronation. His first time flying Druk.

Whether her father remembers the stories, she doesn't know, but he listens intently nonetheless.

Izumi gets the worse end of the stick, knowing these memories, and knowing how miserably far they had fallen. Yet, Iroh talks with a smile on his face, something like admiration in his eyes when he looks at his sickly grandfather. To him, she realizes, to him, the man in those books and the man in front of him are one and the same. His frailty did not shadow his strength. The past had not changed, even if he had forgotten it.

The Avatar's words come back to her. _Disease doesn't define anyone… it doesn't take away from who you are or anything you've done._

The cloud in her eyes seems to fade, just a bit. Izumi sees her father's bedside, piled high with papers and gifts, letters of thanks and condolences of which there seemed no end. They kept trickling in, some from the highest dignitaries, some from close friends, some from any citizen with pen and paper and something to say thank you for.

She heard that there were vigils being attended all around the world. She'd seen a picture of her father's statue in Republic City flecked with candlelight and piled high with flowers.

She remembers those final days in the palace, every time her father lashed out at a servant or noble. They never got angry. Instead, they would always come to her afterwards with worried eyes and ask if their lord was alright.

His people loved him. A great majority of the world held respect for him. In the pain of watching her father forget, Izumi had almost lost sight of all that he had done to deserve that.

She takes her father's hand, who still listened enraptured as her son spoke. His skin is papery under her fingers. Iroh closes his book, says it was getting late, collects himself and shuts the door as he leaves.

They are alone again, father and daughter, and when he meets her eyes Izumi holds the gaze, long and dearly. Her father was old, and frail, and he may have forgotten himself, he may have forgotten _her_ , but that would never change the past, or his strength, or her love for him.

She pulls him into an embrace, and thinks how even now she still feels warm in his arms. When they pull away, Izumi wipes tears from her eyes.

 _No matter what happens, Izumi… I will always love you. That will never stop being true._

Her father had lived his life once a man and twice a child, but he would always be a hero. How could she ever have forgotten that?


End file.
